Well I'll put my two cents in as I've been playing since launch and most of my friends from other MMO's I've played have been playing it since Beta.
At launch WoW had serious server problems. I think blizzard way underestimated the popularity of this game. It has out sold EQII, lol. After the first week tho, new servers were added and I've had no, if very little, problem with lag issues or waiting to log in.
I do think blizzard will need to offer a 1 time migration to another server tho'
Crafting: Something that article forgot to mention was that Blizzard has an upcoming patch for more crafting 'recipies' and to imlplement a few more professions like carpentry into it. Having 2 professions, while limiting what your character can create at any one time, was a semi-brilliant move. It keeps players from becoming 'masters' at every craft and flooding the market with overpriced, grossly enchanted, umber goods.
Also, everything you make is useful and good. My Paladin personaly walks around in a full suit of mail, all with the tag <Made by Gaien> *wipes a tear* Ah, the pride
There are several 'secondary' profession skills your character can learn in addition to your 2 primary ones. Cooking, First Aid and Fishing to think of a few. First aid is awesome and a great skill for non-healing classes like warriors and mages. Cooking is VERY well done with dishes like Gooey Spider Cakes, Partialy Digested Crocodile Steak, Westfall Stew, ect. Great names and food REALLY can help your character recover lost hp and mp quickly.
Player Housing: WoW is implementing this soon.
PvP: Yeah, sometimes you can get a high level member of the opposing faction in a newb zone, but it's near suicide to stay there long like the artical sudgests. The patroling guards are high enough to kill all but the higher level players and once word gets out that there is an enemy afoot, floods of people hunt them down.
Contested areas are a little different and provide, IMHO, not only great RP oppertunity, but massive battles. For instance, my guild (and several others) ended up having a massive PvP battle with all levels and classes from both factions. At the peak it had over 100 (no joke) people blasting each other with spells and hacking each other apart.
The world is very, very large and seemless. As a bonus, it doesn't contain endless streches of pixles. The landscape is beautiful and well done. I've found myself spending hours just exploring the terrain.
Guilds. Oh yeah, there's guilds. It costs a small fee to start a guild and you need 9 other people to sign a 'charter' to get your guild formed. You can create tabards in WoW for your guild and they are expensive, but I guess it encourages your guild to chip in for the tabards. Below is a link to give you an idea to the amount of customization blizzard gave its guild system.
wowvault.ign.com/static.php?category=guilds&page=tabardviewerAye, the graffix of the game can be cartoony or 'campy-ish' as a dear friend of mine put it, but it's a fantasy game, not real life. I think the graffix kick much arse regardless. I do think that Blizzard should have gone for a (M)ature rating tho
, they're almost there as it is. They already have moderate gore and very skimpy outfits.
World of Warcraft also offers a host of rather impressive emotes. Everything from well done dances, to spoken emotes like 'Thank you", taunts, cheering and even telling jokes.
The quests are highly involved and most are multi-tiered. In addition they really involve you in the games deeply rich history. I just finnished a quest that involved me stalking through mines and caverns to a hidden pirate ship at dock at a lake. Scailing the ship and slaying the leader of a brotherhood of assassians, and I felt sorry for killing him! He was jipped a bunch of money owed to him and his fellow masons after rebuilding the capital city 'cause it got destroyed in the previous war so he started a minor rebellion...
Ok, so I put in more than two cents, more like a buck and change, but I think this has got to be one of the greatest games ever designed.
So now that i've placed my opinion on the board, I'd love to hear somone's view of EQII.
PM me if you have any questions
-Gaien
, they're almost there as it is. They already have moderate gore and very skimpy outfits.